AHL approves relocation of Flames to Glens Falls

The American Hockey League’s board of governors has approved the relocation of the Abbotsford Heat, owned by the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames, from British Columbia to Glens Falls beginning next season, the league announced this evening.

The Flames’ AHL franchise will play at the Glens Falls Civic Center, which had been home to the Adirondack Phantoms the previous five years. The Phantoms used Glens Falls as a temporary home while an arena was built in Allentown, Pa., where they will be known as the Lehigh Valley Phantoms starting next season.

“Glens Falls has had a terrific history with the American Hockey League and will be an ideal location and environment for the development of our prospects,” Calgary general manager Brad Treliving said in a statement. “When we announced on April 15 our discontinuation of operations in the city of Abbotsford, we had a few options available to us, and there was much speculation about Glens Falls. There has been a high level of interest demonstrated to ensure the AHL remains in that market. We look forward to finalizing details and beginning this new partnership.”

The move of the Abbotsford franchise could bring former Albany River Rats coach Robbie Ftorek back to the Capital Region. Ftorek, who coached the Rats to the 1995 Calder Cup championship, was an assistant coach for the Heat this season.

The Heat, which lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Grand Rapids Griffins, are coached by Troy Ward.

There was no immediate word on if the franchise will use the parent team’s nickname of “Flames” or adopt one of its own.

Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond and Calgary Flames officials said a news conference will be held next week. Until then, no further details will be provided.

20 Responses

I am a bit jealous right now. Not for the arrival of the farm team of Calgary, and absolutely not because I would rather see a game in Glens Falls over Albany, most importantly Robbie Ftorek coming back to the region only as an enemy coach lol. Ftorek is, and always will be a huge face of Albany AHL hockey history. Not to take anything away from Coach Rick K, I am really hoping he gets a real run at success finally as he is grinding out and paying his dues but Ftorek’s legacy in Albany is awesome, and probably still not done yet. At least Robbie will work much closer to home near his family in Mass, going to be special having him around again!

How about the rebirth of the Empire division?….GF, Albany, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Utica. Maybe an Atlantic division of all N.E. teams except Hartford and Bridgeport including St. John’s….they can go to the South division with LV, WB-S, Hershey , Norfolk, and Charlotte and let the dust settle with the rest of the organizations. It is hypothetical at this juncture but maybe a division of N.Y. state based teams will ramp up rivalries especially with the Calgary and Vancouver affiliates.

As appealing as a New York division sounds to fans of this area, it isn’t practical from a league standpoint. You already have Utica in the Western Conference because of AHL geographical needs, and another time (perhaps Syracuse, which used to be there) will have to shift to the West.

What’s surprising about this move is that there is a movement in the NHL to have more Western-based AHL teams, and one of the teams that actually owned a Western affiliate is moving east.

If Albany plans their schedule right they can get a double bonus. If they schedule games against the Phantoms on days where their isn’t a game in Glens falls, you might get a couple of hundred people from up here looking to see the old team. Allthough I think the new Phantoms will look nothing like the holding pattern team they put together in Glens Falls. Even if their isn’t an Empire division, it would be nice to see the other NY teams a bit more than we actually did.

I’m sure the Devils wish they could do that, but all they do is supply available home dates. The league fills in the rest, including opponents.

There is some wiggle room as far as how many times the Devils face each team. They did manage to get four games with Utica, although another New York team, Rochester, did not appear on the schedule, I believe for the first time ever.

It would be nice if they put their heads together and came up with a schedule where Albany and Adirondack were home on the same night as few nights as possible.

It would probally make more sense to worry about when RPI and Union were having a home weekend. I could see a few hundred Phantoms fans going to a Phantoms game at Albany, as long as the Phantoms weren’t playing in Glens Falls the next night or something like that.

I realize nothing in the AHL is permenant, but it will be exponentially better to have a team that knows they will stick around for as long as the fan base will support them. I’m going to be a lot more into following the Flames than with the “Don’t get too attached” Phantoms. That makes me more likely to travel to away games as well. Especially if they are good games.

Both front offices will need to get more into it though. We had one game last season where Devil Dog came up to Glens Falls to have some interaction with Dax. That should be a more regular thing. They should also organize more intermission activities with fans from one team vs the other. The Time Warner Cup didn’t matter because the players didn’t care about it. Do something like it, but give it to the fans instead. Maybe with enough seasons and games that actually have playoff repercussions the series will mean a bit more.

I think that the AHL out draws the college teams pretty easily, and when you subtract the free tickets the college students receive they’re really not a factor at all. I have nothing against the college teams let me clarify, but it seems like fans of the pro game stick to that and the same with college.

You’d get more people who live between the two areas, casual fans looking for something to do if only one is home at a time, instead of splitting them.

To Mr. Dougherty…indeed it might be suggestion for the AHL Bd. of Gov’s for a difficult realignment not included in my thoughts were a Great Lakes division and a Central division but playoff seedings would be an issue I’m sure. Yes I did read in brief about a future possible transfer of selected AHL to the west. Let me preface by mentioning when Kevin Lowe when GM of Edmonton and at that time the AHL franchise was transferred to Springfield stated in his thought the fact the farmhands and “investments” stationed in Western Mass. would have limited travel and expenses as well but the key is extra practice time. Obviously that concept can’t work for every team especially the Winnipeg organization with the travel burden for St. John’s and Checkers owner Michael Kahn who relies mostly in air travel but in Calgary’s situation the limited travel in combination with a small town community that will be an asset to the players (I’ve been to Calgary and beyond Alberta numerous times and the prairie hamlets throughout the province with the grain towers, flat land, bails of hay…the whole thing…a different climate) and GF with the small town feel will aid in development and the maturity of the players and hopefully a spirited rivalry with the A-Devils.

@Mr. Mountie: All valid points. My belief is that the current AHL geography, with teams clustered in the Northeast, is much better for player development than moving half of those teams out West. Coaches much prefer practice time as opposed to time wasted in airports. Perhaps the Flames’ move will temper the momentum for a migration to the West.

Assuming that this is the end of the AHL silly season and Dave Andrews doesn’t have to make anymore moves I would think mirroring the NHL’s new division/playoff structure might make some sense. Although it would be going back to what the AHL had several years ago.

@Sesentinueve. The upstate New Yorker in me agrees with your suggestion in my made-up divisions and it does make sense. However, Norfolk might not like getting pushed out of their situation they have with the teams in the East. Looking at their schedule this past season they can do a week or two road trip and knock out several teams in a weekend in the East. It’s harder to do that if they are grouped with teams in the West like Cleveland or Grand Rapids (they could bus over to the likes of Rockford, Milwaukee and Chicago). Norfolk would probably have to give their blessing to go West and I don’t think they would be willing to do that.

in regards to norfolk–last year if memory served they made 5-6 14 hour trips to the likes of albanay and adirondack–then they drove back 14 hours–wouldnt 5-6 3 hour plane flights be less wearing on the players-seems to me, norfolk should be shipped out west-just like charlotte was because geographical its not a good match with the east coast teams.

My understanding is that the Checkers have a pre-arranged agreement to help pay travel costs for opponents flying into Charlotte. Norfolk, which has been in the league longer, has no such stipulation. It’s obviously a lot cheaper to have teams in the Northeast take a long bus trip to Norfolk than to fly teams in from the West.